Elissa Slotkin, U.S. Representative, Michigan (7th District)

Representative Elissa Slotkin serves the residents of Michigan’s 7th Congressional District, which includes all of Ingham, Livingston, Shiawassee, and Clinton counties, as well as parts of Eaton, Genesee, and Oakland counties.

A former national security official, Elissa applies a mission-driven approach to the issues and challenges affecting the citizens of the 7th district. That means clear-eyed focus on how we can bring critical manufacturing and jobs back to mid-Michigan, lower the cost of prescription drugs and healthcare, protect Michigan’s lakes and drinking water, win the competition with China for our national and economic security, and honor our commitment to our veterans. To learn more about Elissa’s legislative priorities, click here.

A third generation Michigander, Elissa spent her early life on her family farm in Holly. The generations of Slotkins before her started and built their family business, Hygrade Foods, which supplied its now iconic Ballpark Frank to the hungry crowds at Tiger Stadium.

The values on which the family business rested instilled in Elissa an enduring commitment to integrity, decency, and hard work – one that eventually guided her to a career in public service. After earning her undergraduate degree at Cornell University, she attended graduate school at Columbia University in New York City, arriving on campus just days before the September 11 attacks. That experience started her on the path to a career in national security, and after grad school, she joined the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as an intelligence analyst. At the CIA, she worked alongside the military during three tours in Iraq helping our troops counter violent militias.

In between those tours, she held various defense and intelligence positions under President Bush and President Obama. In 2011, Elissa took a senior position at the Pentagon, and rose to serve as an acting assistant secretary of defense until January 2017. In this role, she oversaw Pentagon policy in Russia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa; helped coordinate the successful campaign to counter ISIS; and participated in negotiations on some of the country’s most critical national security issues.

One of Elissa’s primary motivations to serve in Congress was another personal experience: When her mother was diagnosed with advanced cancer, she was without health insurance because a pre-existing condition had made coverage too expensive. Seeing her own member of Congress vote to eliminate the Affordable Care Act’s protections for pre-existing conditions inspired her to run for Congress and protect health care for millions of Michiganders.